Concrete is one of the world’s favorite building materials; it’s strong, simple to mix, and generally widely available. Its dirty little secret has always been centered around one of its main ingredients: cement. To make cement, crushed rock and other ingredients are fed into a kiln that heats the components at temperatures reaching 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. Those extreme temperatures cause large amounts of carbon dioxide to be released into the air and, combined with the carbon dioxide that’s produced just to burn the fossil fuels to heat the kiln, it makes cement one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases in the world, 5% in total.

After analyzing new and existing data of cement materials from 1930 to 2013, the scientists concluded that the cement absorbs up to 43% of the carbon dioxide it emits for its creation. That reduction does not include the emissions created by burning the fossil fuels, which reduces the total reduction of carbon dioxide to 21.5% over its lifetime. The research is important because it allows scientists to better focus on specific areas to help reduce emissions. In this case, the burning of fossil fuels has been discovered as the largest source of net carbon dioxide emissions. Rob Jackson, an earth systems scientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, told Science Magazine that, “If you have a choice—reduce fossil emissions or reduce cement emissions—you should prefer the fossil ones right now.”

In September of 2017, OSHA’s new standard on exposure to respirable crystalline silica went into effect in the construction industry. The rule lowered the allowable exposure to the harmful substance to 50 micrograms per cubic meter, a measurement that we’re all familiar with [/sarcasm]. After a full year of enforcement, OSHA is considering making a change to the rule.

Concrete is one of the world’s favorite building materials; it’s strong, simple to mix, and generally widely available. Its dirty little secret has always been centered around one of its main ingredients: cement. To make cement, crushed rock and other ingredients are fed into a kiln that heats the components at temperatures reaching 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. Those extreme temperatures cause large amounts of carbon dioxide to be released into the air and, combined with the carbon dioxide that’s produced just to burn the fossil fuels to heat the kiln, it makes cement one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases in the world, 5% in total.

Concrete, the construction industry’s building material of choice for hundreds of years, is an extremely tough and durable product. Being such a rigid product, concrete has inherently poor tensile strength, which is its ability to withstand being stretched, as opposed to compressing. This poor tensile strength leads to cracking, which eventually leads to failure. Scientists have been racing to discover the cure to concrete’s cracking problem for years, most notably Henk Jonkers’ bio-concrete, which uses microorganisms to “heal” cracked concrete.

The newest challengers to the material’s flexibility problem are a group of scientists from Nanyung Technological University (NTU) in Singapore. The team calls their product “ConFlexPave” and it not only bends under pressure, unlike concrete, it’s also thinner and maybe even stronger than its traditional brethren.

Concrete, the world’s most widely used construction material, has a giant target on its back and plenty of people want to take a piece of its pie. It’s cheap and strong, which has, so far held off many would-be competitors from getting popular. One of concrete’s major drawbacks and one of its most vulnerable areas is the fact that it’s extremely time consuming and difficult to demolish.

Self-compacting concrete, which does not need to be vibrated to become fully compacted, has many advantages on a job site, such as lower overall costs, faster construction times, no need for a concrete vibrator, and thinner concrete sections. One of the major disadvantages of this type of concrete, however, is that it’s notoriously poor in regards to fire resistance. Traditional concrete solves the fire resistance problem by adding polypropylene (PP) fiber, which allow the concrete structure to stay intact when it comes in contact with fire.

Concrete is great. It’s strong, it’s got a long life, but then, it cracks and everyone is bummed out. Cracking is not only an eyesore, but it leads to structural issues and leaks, among other issues. Back in May, we wrote about a concrete additive that would allow the concrete to “heal” its own cracks and it’s got researchers pretty excited about the possibilities.

Ready mix concrete has been used in construction projects since the first ready-mix factory was built in the 1930s. Since the 1980s, there has been a boom in construction and the use of ready-mix as a building material means that concrete plants have had to work hard to keep up with the ever increasing demand.

If you have ever had to form and pour curbs before you know they can be an absolute pain. Even the extruded curbs have their limitations and come along with a large piece of machinery. The Curb Roller is a new easy solution to the curb problem.

The American Concrete Institute (ACI) has just released a companion guide to the ACI 562-13 Code Requirements for Evaluation, Repair, and Rehabilitation of Concrete Buildings. Aimed at contractors, inspectors, owners, and manufacturers, the guide’s main goal is to provide insight into the interpretations and explain the proper use of the ACI 562 principles.

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